Dreams Can Come True (5 page)

“Shall we walk back after we’ve eaten these?” asked Hannah, as she came back bearing the creamy-looking mixture in two little pots. “I’ve had to pay a deposit on these bowls, so we’ll sit over on that bench and eat them there. See, isn’t that the best taste ever?”

She looked at Eddie to see if he was enjoying his. Eddie agreed that he was. He could have stayed forever, watching her delicately spooning the ice cream onto her pink dainty tongue, longing to kiss those delectable lips of hers, to lick her cheek and the bottom of her chin, where like a child she had let the ice cream dribble. In fact if they had not been in public, he would have crushed her to him. The thought of which started a stirring in his loins. He had to see her, somewhere they could be alone together, but after her grandma had seen them on the promenade, he knew it was difficult for her to get away.

They didn’t sit together on the train journey back to Neston. She had a first class ticket in the carriage with the plush seats. Eddie sat on a bench in the third class coach, crowded with shoppers as it had been market day. They both dashed into the waiting room as they got down from the train, there to do a spot of canoodling before they went their separate ways.

“Do you think yer could get away for a few hours next Sunday afternoon, Hannah?” Eddie managed to gasp, as they both came up for air. “Say yer going for a walk with the dogs down to the shore.”

“I’ll try, but someone might want to come with me and it could only be a short walk because it goes dark at half past four. Why, where do you want us to meet if I can manage it?”

“I know of this derelict cottage on Brigg’s land. I used to take shelter there sometimes, if I was out walking and it came on to rain. If yer go down the lane at the side of Selwyn Lodge, you come to a gap in the hedge. Over that field takes yer to the lane where the farmhouse is. Past the gate and onto another field, where there’s a stream. You can hear it babble as yer walking. Then cross the footbridge which takes you through another field, then you’ll see a cottage on the lane. It’s called Lilac Cottage. You’ll know it by the bushes in the garden, though they’ve got very overgrown.”

“I think I know where you’re talking about. I used to ride my pony down there, but I used to start at the coastal path and ride along up that lane. There are three cottages, I didn’t know that one was empty. I’d better go now, Eddie, or my father will be sending the dogs out to look for me. What time will you get there?”

“Around two, I think, as long as dinner is put on the table early. I’ll stay until four and if yer don’t turn up, I’ll be there at the same time the following Sunday.”

They kissed goodbye and Hannah made her way out sedately, as if she had been spending time in the Ladies’ rest room. Eddie sighed. He had to find a job that would pay enough for him to rent a cottage. Then he could ask Hannah if she would marry him.

It was easy enough to find the cottage. With Fang and Rufus, her wolfhounds, it had taken no more than ten minutes of brisk walking to get them there. The garden was overgrown, as Eddie had said it would be, and the hinge on the front door wanted fixing, as the door was swinging about drunkenly in the wind.

It was freezing cold inside the living room, not helped by the flagged floor with no rugs upon it and the burnt-out range that they dared not light in case someone knew there were intruders there. Hannah was as warm as toast in her walking outfit; a heavy dark green bombazine skirt, long sleeved bodice and lots of underskirts. She wore a thick woollen travelling coat and a pretty velour bonnet in a russet shade that seemed to match the colour of the falling leaves. Eddie was enchanted, though he couldn’t help his poorly-clad body from shivering, so they shared an old blanket as they sat on the dusty settee.

The conversation was desultory, mostly with Eddie moaning about his boring life at the pub’. The family’s two wolfhounds sat like bookends at each end of the sofa and from time to time got up to wander, stretch, then sit down again. They both spoke again of playing together in Selwyn Lodge’s nursery and how Hannah had been upset when Sarah the nursemaid had married Ezra and gone to live with him.

“Not that I knew she had married the grocer, it was what my mother told me. It was sad when Ezra died and Sarah moved away.”

“It must have been sad for you that your mother died,” commented Eddie, in between placing little kisses on Hannah’s lips and eyes. “As much as I loathe my younger brothers and sister, I still love me mam.”

“What do you mean, Eddie, about my mother dying?” asked Hannah, alert now, as she had felt very languorous lying with him on the sofa.

“As far as I know, she’s alive and well. At least she was when I saw her at luncheon today.”

Eddie grew pale and started back-peddling. His chances of doing more than giving Hannah little kisses were beginning to drain away!

“Oh, forget I said it. Come here, lie back where it’s warm, you’re letting all the cold air in. We’ve this place all to ourselves and you’re wasting it.”

Hannah’s cat like eyes began to glitter dangerously. If Eddie had something to impart of an earth-shattering nature, she really wanted to know. She poked him hard on his shoulder and he yelped.

“All right, all right. It was just something me mother said when I was about nine or ten. I asked why I wasn’t allowed ter play with you and Mikey and she said there had been a falling out. She said that you were being passed off as a legitimate child of the Haines family, when everyone knew that yer mother had died and your grandma didn’t want yer living with her.”

Eddie tapped his head.

“I could be confusing it with something else she said.”

“Like what? What else could your mother be saying?”

“She just said it seemed strange that with your father not being around at the time, your mother had still given birth!”

Hannah jumped up from the sofa then, throwing the blanket over Eddie, where he trembled beneath because of what he had said. He’d blown his chances. Wasn’t there a saying about shooting the messenger? Well, he was truly wounded, as Hannah and her dogs rushed out of the cottage without a backward glance at him.

Mikey Haines, or Michael as he liked people to call him now he was grown up, was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He had been trying hard to read a book called
Gulliver’s Travels
, but he couldn’t get interested. He had a lot on his mind instead. Michael had been working at the Sheldon Loan and Property Company for five years now from when his mother had considered it time to put his private education to use in running her firm. It had been hard working under Mr. Arlington, a precise and diligent employee, whose only wish was for the company to flourish. Which it did, with his assistant Mr. Peel. Michael was treated as the “ go for”. He had no serious input other than running errands and making the tea, but Mr. Arlington liked to wheel him out if the occasion arose, as the proprietor’s son to whom all decisions were deferred.

Michael would have liked to spend his days with Mr. Peel, who had the more interesting job of overseeing the Bounty vouchers. He got to visit all the stores that had been recruited to carry out the borrowing scheme and went as far as Staffordshire, sometimes on the train. The only time Michael made his escape from the office was on a Wednesday. It was his job to take the banking to Chester, getting to know the city quite well.

Occasionally he arranged to meet his sister and had asked her last week if they could meet this Wednesday in her lunch hour? To this she had replied that she was far too busy, perhaps they could meet on another Wednesday instead.

Michael had two problems to ponder over. First, he was sure he’d seen that Eddie fellow hanging around the cathedral, when he had passed by to walk down to the Rows. Then he thought that he had seen Hannah and Eddie together, as he sat in Cottles having a cake and a cup of tea. They were walking quite briskly so he couldn’t be sure it was them, but if it was true his parents would be furious, because Eddie was an undesirable to them.

Michael’s other problem was – to where was his life leading? Perhaps he should ask his mother to buy him a commission in the Army, which was what a lot of his friends were going to do. They had plans to join the Cheshire Regiment as his pals, Jeremy Adshead and Monty Renfrew, were both from families that had a military background. Michael, when he got to thinking, thought this would be a lot of fun.

Suddenly, he heard someone at the door knocking furiously. It could only be Hannah, Michael thought. Why didn’t the folks just give her a key? Then pandemonium seemed to erupt. He could hear the shouting from below. Whatever the matter was, he hoped the servants were not around to hear it, as servants were apt to carry gossip to their friends.

He got his tall frame off the bed, stretched languidly and walked to the top of the landing. The noise seemed to be coming from the conservatory now. He would go down and see what the row was all about, then hopefully come back to lie on his bed.

The scene that met his eyes as he walked in was shocking. Hannah was bent double in a low cane chair crying uncontrollably. His mother was standing, white-faced, watching as his father was trying to console his sister, patting her shoulder ineffectively.

“Whatever is the matter, Mother?” Michael began, his boyish face creased with concern for her, but Maggie just flapped him away silently. He sat down on another chair nearby and listened to what was being said.

Hannah’s outburst started to give way to a hiccoughing weeping, so Michael seized his chance to ask what was going on.

“Some lout has told Hannah that she doesn’t belong to the Haines family. I’m trying to find out who it was, because I’ll give him a good thrashing when I get to the bottom of this.” But his father looked scared as he said it and Michael wondered what was really bothering him.

“Is it true, Mother?” Hannah seemed at last to be getting hold of herself. “Is it true you’re not really my mother? I was born to somebody else?”

Both Jack and Maggie were in a turmoil. This was the moment they had dreaded. Had Hannah been told the real truth, the one that told of Kitty May and Jack’s adultery? Or the version that Alice would prefer them to tell? That she was the granddaughter of her sister, sent over from Ireland when Alice’s sister couldn’t cope? For Maggie’s part, the latter story was the least painful, but that meant that Jack could not claim Hannah as his daughter, only a distant cousin.

She looked at Jack for guidance, but he was of no help at all. He was staring at her now. Was it pleading that she saw in his eyes, or one of resignation? She couldn’t be sure.

“Tell me again, exactly what this person told yer,” Maggie said to Hannah gently. “He said I wasn’t yer mother. What did he say about yer father as well?”

“He said that Father couldn’t possibly be my father, because he wasn’t here when you were expecting me.”

“I’ll tell her, Maggie,” Jack said, when he saw that his wife was now being painted as a loose woman. “I’ll tell them the truth, the both of them, but I know neither of them will ever forgive me.”

He sat heavily into another chair, then drew an ornate table closer, so that he could rest his now trembling hands upon it.

“What is it, Papa?” said Hannah in a quiet, almost inaudible voice, using the childish name she had called her father when she used to sit on his knee.

“I am yer father, Hannah, but Maggie is not yer real mother.”

He went on to tell Hannah and Mikey of how his youthful ambition was to be great pugilist. No matter what it cost him, he wanted fame and fortune at that time.

Maggie had been content being mother to Mikey, with no ambition other than being a faithful wife. He had wanted her to follow him to Liverpool, where he was the protege of a lord who had an interest in fighting, but Maggie preferred to live in Neston, with her wonderful view of the Welsh Hills. He had been lonely and Kitty May had been kind to him, nursing him through the resulting injuries from his last fight.

“She made me happy, Hannah. Gave me comfort while I was away from me family. But before I knew it, Kitty May was going to expect my child.”

“The child being Hannah,” remarked Michael dryly, his eyes narrowing. “So you were unfaithful to my mother, while she stayed at home looking after me.”

“It wasn’t quite like that, Mikey…” Maggie began.

“The fact is, Mother, your husband here committed adultery and you obviously condoned it because here we have the result. Kitty May’s child.” Michael waved in Hannah’s direction, who had now started crying hysterically after hearing his words.

“I didn’t condone it, Mikey. As yer know I built a new life fer the pair of us. That’s why we have the Sheldon companies, because I was able to start a business without yer father, though with Miss Rosemary’s help of course. It was only when Hannah’s mother died and she was sent here from America. How could I have left a tiny little baby in the care of yer grandmother? She disliked the child on sight, because it hadn’t bin born in wedlock for a start.”

“Well, you disgust me Father and you have made up my mind for me because of it. Mother, I would like to take up a commission in the Army. I will send for the papers tomorrow and I would be obliged if you will furnish the necessary money to pay for it. Oh, and by the way Father, perhaps you would like to know where your by-blow got her information? She had a secret assignation on Wednesday in Chester with the uncouth fellow who lives at the inn.”

Michael walked away with a look of scorn on his face, narrowly escaping a blow from Jack who had jumped up in anger, ready to hit out with his clenched fists.

“Leave him, Jack. Don’t do something that you’ll regret later. Mikey’s hurting like we all are at the moment. Mikey,” his mother called. “I’ll make us all a cup of tea and bring you one up when it’s ready. Thank the Lord, the servants are off this evening,” she said to Jack. “We don’t want all this being stirred up again.”

Jack sat with his head in his hands, while Maggie left the conservatory and Hannah studiously stared at a leaf on a palm tree. He felt gutted, as if the wind had been knocked out of him. Wasn’t there a saying, how chickens came home to roost? Well, his chickens had certainly come home today. What he could do to put things right, he just didn’t know. Nothing would be the same again. He wanted to go down to the Brown Horse and knock seven bells out of this blackguard, but he knew he was as much to blame as the lad.